The Survivalists

Christmas Trick

I’ve been told that some children and even some adults poke around under beds and into closets (otherwise off limits) for presents around Christmas time when parents are away. My two wonderful daughters never did so!

There is a knot that can be tied that will tell whether a package or group of them tied up has been disturbed. It’s called the thief knot. It looks just like the square knot but you will see after a little experimenting that it slips. It’s not a good knot like the square one. (A thief sees and expects a square knot, robs, and re-ties the square … but you know of the theft because you had tied up your packages with the thief’s knot.)    Here is a square knot

Thief's Knot

                                                  

  * * *
Survivalists is a blog of Bob Giles, Professor Emeritus, Virginia Tech, sharing ideas, observations, and notes on his concerns for the future and preparing for it. His Faunal Force blog presents concepts and observations on wild faunal ("wildlife") management systems and related topics. His web site is Rural System, part of which provides design for a proposed modern natural resource system. He can be reached through Linkedin , Academia, and Twitter.

Milpa: Ancient Invention

Charles C. Mann in his book  "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" quoted H.G. Wilkes who said that the milpa was "...one of the most successful human invetions ever created." A milpa [maize field] is  a small cleared field in which farmers plant a dozen crops at once including maize (corn), squash and beans, tomatoes, sweet potato (depending on local conditions). The beans use the corn as a trelise, fix nitrogen, and add to ecological diversity etc. The results are nutritionally useful and well mixed for humans. Crop rotation with its gap in productivity is rarely needed. For the small community in the new survival mode, a re-discovery and testing of the milpa and a local or community system of milpas for site-specific differences seems like a good idea.

An Unacceptable Cost of New Energy

About 50 years ago when "ecology" was first being widely taught in high schools, students as far back as then learned that it was good to keep the ground covered. The covering decomposed and enriched and developed soil; it shaded soil and its multi-thousand organisms. It reduced impact of rain drops that splashed and sealed the soil surface preventing percolation into the soil layer. It reduced evaporation and allowed rainfall to percolate into the hidden depths from which good water came. Wind rows, organic strips were planted near farm houses to reduce winds and thus maintain soil and water and reduce energy costs of living in the open land. Today people know about "mulch" and its effects on soil, water runoff, and moisture conservation. Keeping the ground covered is still a good idea for all of those reasons - wind, water, climate control, erosion control, and even food and nesting places for wildlife.

The recent movement to convert wood and grass and understory plants (biomass) into ethanol  did not get the ecology messages in high school and the drumbeat becoming louder ever since. We have to keep the ground covered.

The president of the National Association of State Foresters recently said that permitting federal forest lands to supply feedstock to ethanol energy mills would provide many benefits. Somehow one benefit was "improved forest health" (denying the above functions and ignoring the nutrients and minerals in all of the materials being removed being lost to future plant growth). Another benefit claimed was reducing growth that could cause a catastrophic wildfire. Carefully managed and monitored biomass production in specific areas where transportation is energy-efficient for ethanol mills has to be a future possibility, but sweeping generalizations such as this from agency leaders has to be denied in the face of ecological knowledge as well as wildfire and prescribed-burning findings.

 

The same person said that the proposed Renewable Fuels Standard definition limited family-wage jobs in forest-based communities (as it should to protect forests and range lands for all of their many benefits) and then claimed it did not reduce "...the risk of wildfire that threaten as many as 64,000 communities in the U.S. each year." (There are only 25,375 communities in the USA.)

We have to tend very carefully the diverse, well-adapted natural covering of the land. Ancient societies have already demonstrated for us that destroying the cover of the land can accompany the social downfall. "If we had only known" will not work in a society with communication and education systems.

New Teaching and Learning

I was reading Nandan Nilekani’s Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation looking for parallels with conditions and opportunities in India and within my region of Southwestern Virginia. I was finding more than I expected. Then, diverting, I read an article about a recent White House conference on rural education and realized a clear parallel. There are real, beautiful, hopeful children at stake. They need education. When people live in remote rural areas, the costs of education are high for they now must be transported to centralized schools (once said to be economical) at increasingly high and uncertain but likely higher-than-now cost. People are leaving for the cities; taxes paid to the community are leaving; teachers’ salaries cannot be paid; teachers are leaving, education for children is leaving…encouraging parents to leave for the cities.

 

Francisco Guajardo, who attended the Washington meeting, said that the  group there described fiscal needs: to build more school facilities in rural areas, to recruit and retain more qualified rural teachers, and to strengthen and support the government’s federal trust responsibility to Native American schools, most of which are rural. Participants also described the adverse impact of high stakes testing on rural schools.

She thought that the right people were present to talk policy but “the conversation also struck me as unimaginative, stuck in a deficit-driven and antiquated discourse on rural communities.  The collective argument was emphatic about the struggle and plight of rural education but devoid of the spirit, vitality, and force of what I have experienced with children in rural schoolhouses across this country.“

I now believe that the old thing called an “education system” will not work for the near-future. The new will not be pretty compared to the past, but nothing will be judged pretty in the energy-short, changed-climate world. Change needs to be started immediately for the benefits for the children in:

•           Developing local household teaching teams

•           Developing community computer kiosks

•           Providing access to computers in homes

•           Developing proven-effective distance-learning media

•           Developing behavioral objectives to replace curricula

•           Developing behavioral  performance criteria for success

•           Developing periodic community educational assemblies

•           Eliminating “adequate time in school” as a criterion of educational success

•           Providing financial incentives for learning and opportunities for continued financial rewards

•           Paying partial costs of education from a proportion of financial advances made by students after their later continuing-learning events

 

The Malaria Threat

With our coastal waters now threatened to rise well over a meter and wetlands and beaches to become vast in the mid-Atlantic and southern states (USA) we can expect significant increases in malarial mosquitoes and thus the disease. A recent study suggests that inland areas with freshwater ponds and wetlands may likely  accompany temperature increase. Expertise on the disease will be come invaluable. 

Senior Moment?

Old people say they are having "a senior moment" when they cannot remember something. As one of the older people, I seem to be hearing that statement from younger and younger people. It seems likely that part of the cause of such "memory loss" is a burden of mercury in their bodies (and mine) gathered over time by low dose exposures. One in 12 women in the USA have body mercury levels considered unsafe by the EPA (Frontiers in Ecology and Environment 7(3)p.121; 2009). I bet the loads are not sex specific. It's a major public health threat and the symptoms are growing..."Nation, Nation...we have a problem."

One third of the source: coal-fired power plants (and they're not going away before 2030). There are other sources, some lessening since childhood  (playing with the mercury of thermometers), others increasing (fish).

In February,2009,  countries got together and said "enough is enough" and concluded that voluntary efforts to control mercury pollution just won't work. There's a new treaty and promises to reduce mercury emissions and international trade in mercury, improve storage, and cleanup contaminated sites.

Those signing the treaty, ignoring the human crisis in the gold-mining areas where mercury is intensively used, said "let's start by 2013," having their own senior moment about their conclusion that babies are now at risk and mercury pollution is a major public health threat.

Naming the Problem

We, folks of the world, have a problem. It's too big to imagine and think about. When we use conventional thought we easily shift to finding "the cause" (whatever the problem is or might be). The changing climate and its effects and greenhouse gasses is an example of a big, multi-part, single problem. It takes work to understand, see the parts, and decide where to attack it for a solution or to prevent further destructive effects. We look for a cause. Here's an example:

In the US, transportation, and specifically motor vehicle use, is the largest and fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions among all energy sectors. Transportation alone accounts for one-third of all US emissions. Fuel price will affect this as will a strong move to smaller vehicles and electric cars. The nations' electricity demands are very high and projected to grow by at least 30% within 25 years. Coal-fired plants are a major electricity producer. We'll fight more over the last of the oil, some to be used for electricity production. Much of that last available oil will be prized for propulsion of satellites to stabilize computer services worldwide. Nuclear power plants (now blocked) may add to the supplies, but we still have limited cooling water and no way to store the waste. Other energy sources will be developed, but the race is on between running out of coal and increasing transportation gasses as the major causes of climate changes and unimaginable costs throughout world societies due to those changes.

Too general, too future? People are the cause? People define the effects. The people of the arctic are already suffering and on the move.

World Electricity

I've lived during extended electrical outages, done special camping, manned a forest fire tower, and engaged in military operations, all without the services of electricity. I've visited villages in other countries that had no electricity ... ever. I have a deep appreciation for not having electricity.

I've told myself stories of the world without readily-available energy but I was fooling myself and could not sustain the tales. I always ended discussions of alternative sources (coal, oil, gas, geothermal, wood and other biomass, tidal, nuclear, wind, solar) with some foggy notion of all amalgamated somehow with losses over wires from whatever were the popular and most cheap sources that could be gained from holders and defenders as "electricity."

Then today I saw a map of the electricity available to people throughout the world. I am in anguish! Somehow I knew, but I had failed to accept, to internalize that this fundamental element of a quality of like ... by any criteria for "quality" ... is still missing for millions of people over vast area of the world.

There is so much to be done for so many people. How some people elect to use the last of the energy they are able to get, electricity wasting some it, will be grim stories. I cannot begin to think of a happy one for the neighborhood children or those of the world.

After You’ve Predicted, Then What?

Here are a ten ways to predict the future, to “prognosticate.” (Predicting in not "knowing.")

1. Study history. The future is likely to be somewhat like the past. Emphasize change per unit time. Generalize categories ... change of what?

Study and isolate trends and cycles. Compare related trends and cast the trend forward. 

Use statistical techniques such as time-series analyses, multiple linear regression, and non linear regression. Use logistic regression to estimate probabilities.

font face="Times New Roman" size=3>Use computer simulation (perhaps based on a good regression analysis), a model that allows you the study the effects e.g., of A changing to AA and B changing to BB and C changing to CC, then Y in the near future will likely be YY.

Assemble a team of experts and use their combined opinions and estimates about changing factors, encouraging their revisions based on opinions of their peers.

Write and study scenarios, accommodating all of the sources and results of the imagined future condition.

 Estimate the high and low limits of likely changes in local or relevant factors (soil, ore, etc. the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere including solar dimensions, and the biosphere. These define the small and large tetrahedron for life and action.

Isolate recent or pending changes (or published plan) and follow their actual or likely changes. Develop a "consequence" table. Use the results as in 4 above.

Isolate Precepts or fundamentals of how the world, business, or natural systems work. Use all of them to describe to describe a likely total system.

With experts, get their highest numerical estimate (people, size, budget, time, etc.), H, then their lowest, L, then their most likely-to-occur estimate, M, and compute the most likely future, F. F = (H + 4M + L)/6. The result is a median that works well in many situations. Round or adjust depending on whether you are risk prone or averse.

Having spent valuable time on such predictions, then what do you do with them? Use them in feedforward, part of a systems approach. Feedforward  is a special input and process to a decision. It is what you really believe (and will defend and stand by) the conditions are going to be like for the period affected by your decision (e.g., a building, a 5-year budget, a bridge, a by-law). Practical feedforward is making a bold decision about the believed future.

 

A small office system can be created for assisting in doing the above 10 easily and efficiently, thus increasing the chances for doing them, doing them with improvements (feedback), and increasing the goodness of decisions in a very dynamic world.

Notes on Falls and Falling

My wife has fallen ... badly. I visit my 99 year-old Mom at an assisted living home full of stories of falls. I still hurt from an old fall. I don't think falls are a disease. I have dreams of anti-falls action as part of an old-folks organization called The Old Codgers that might be part of Rural System.

"Hey! Don't fall down." That what parents used to say. It means more than ever when you reach a ripe age. An amazing number of people are hurt each year from falls. There are lots of reasons why falls occur. All are not "just an accident." Most can be prevented and they need to be, no foolin'. They hurt. They break bones and it takes a long time for old bones to knit. Bones produce good blood cells and we need all that we can get as we get older.

The death rate (about 37/100,000 in 2003) from falls has risen for old people (65 and older) since the 1990s. People are living longer and those have chronic conditions like cancer and heart disease. Falls are the 24th worst cause of death among the elderly.

The ways to reduce falls (some of these are from the U.S. Center for Disease Control):

1. Clean up the stairs. Don't leave stuff on the steps. It just makes sense. You'll trip over stuff!
2. Get rid of the pretty throw rugs. You can hardly keep them from slipping, even once, eventually. The one time that they slip can be the disastrous one. "Pretty" is not worth the risk of a fall.
3. Need warm feet? Get a big rug that will not slip.
4. Don't wear socks! They are slippy things. Wear rubber sole slippers.
5. Don't climb up on things. Even young people fall off of things. Step-stools and ladders are valuable, but get rid of them in the house. They are dangerous. Put things within reach. Get a "reacher-tool" for less than a dozen bucks. It is cheap compared to the price of a hip replacement. Out of reachis a label for a fall.
6. Exercise your ankles (twisting, turning, standing on tip-toe, bouncing on tip-toe, rocking back and forth sideways while standing) to keep them strong.
7. Install grab bars next to the toilet, bath, and at the doorways. Not pretty or too expensive? Compared to a medical bill?; compared to the beautiful roof of a hospital room? Install them.
8. Put a non-slip mat in the bathtub and shower floor. News flash !! Soapy, wet floors are slippery!
9. Get things well-lit. Keep them well-lit. Put the switches within reach or, better, install a motion detector so that you do not have to remember to hit the switch. You get light when you walk within the dim areas.
10. Install strong handrails on the staircases.
11. Slow down!
12. Dizzy? Tell someone. Get it checked by the doctor.
13. Limit alcohol consumption. 
14. Get someone to carry stuff for you. (awkward or heavy packages prevent you from grasping the aids that keep you from falling). They are not helping you (we know you do not want to be "helped"); they are preventing a fall.
15. Get your eyes checked and corrected. Wear sun glasses in the open sunlight. Not seeing things that trip (TTT) may be the cause of falls, not the things themselves.
16. Large pets can bump you or cause tripping. Consider whether the pleasure of pets is worth the risks from surprise moves, tripping, bumping, and slips related to their food and water. 
17. Carry a cane, especially for going over irregular ground outdoors.
18. No matter what Granny told you, if you do fall, apply ice to the bruised place for 2 hours to reduce bruising. After that, (if you do not see a doctor and get specific advice) start using heat on the bruised spot(s). Don't take aspirin for the pain associated with the bruise until after seeing or discussing that action with a doctor.

Tending someone who has fallen and has an injury is tough duty. Fix up the place; go over the above suggestions. It will be worth it over the short- as well as long-run.